The present subject matter relates generally to a method and apparatus for recording telephone conversations. More particularly, the present subject matter relates to a method and apparatus for recording, at a centralized location, telephone conversation conducted at remote locations. The present subject matter further includes aspects involving information storage and retrieval involving recorded conversations.
The present subject matter is directed in one aspect, although not exclusively, towards the penal (i.e., corrections) environment. Various law enforcement entities find it desirable, even necessary (for example, such as required by law or circumstances), to record some or all telephone conversations conducted by inmates in penal institutions or other detainees in similar facilities. Highly specialized telecommunications equipment and facilities must be provided to meet the various needs of governmental officials and others in addressing the desire to monitor and/or record telephone conversations under varying circumstances. As a non-limiting example, the remainder of the present disclosure will refer to the recording of telephone conversations within the above noted particular environment. It is to be strictly understood, however, that the present technology may be applied to and/or used within other areas where recording of conversations may be of interest. For example, it may be desirable, for training or other purposes, to record conversations involving sales personnel who might be involved with soliciting sales or taking orders from customers. Alternatively, there could be an interest in recording, for training or other purposes, conversations involving persons involved with information exchange such as technical assistants who may provide instruction or assistance to individuals seeking technical support involved with various equipment, computer software or other areas where a user or operator may require assistance in understanding, operating, using, etc. various items or agencies of interest to the individuals involved. As such, it should be understood that the present technology has applicability to any situation where there is a need or desire to record, categorize, store, search, retrieve and/or replay telephone conversations.
It has been common practice for many years in the penal (corrections) environment to record and/or monitor inmates' conversations. Such recording and monitoring takes place in the very controlled atmosphere of permitted inmate communications with individuals outside of the facilities housing prisoners or inmates. Normally prisoners are limited to a small number of individuals that they are permitted to call. These may include family members, their lawyers, and friends and may specifically exclude others, for example judges, jury members, witnesses, former co-conspirators and other like individuals to whom calls from a particular inmate may be of a harassing or other undesired nature. There may be time of day, length of call, three-way call or other restrictions on calls, all of which must be controlled by way of various instrumentalities that may include computer controlled equipment at the facility and/or at remote locations in addition to human monitoring and/or control. In almost all instances, such telephone calls must be recorded; yet even in those instances, there are conditions that may impact on the desire, ability, or legal right to record such conversations. For example, it is inappropriate to record or monitor conversations between an inmate and his/her attorney, and thus, measures must be taken to insure that, where calls are made from an inmate to his/her attorney, no recording is made or monitoring is allowed.
The particular needs described above have been addressed in the prior art, which, in major part, has provided responses to accommodate the majority of the needs addressed. Examples of such include LazerPhone™ and LazerVoice®, products provided by the assignee of the present subject matter. LazerPhone™ is a centralized, PC-based, integrated telephone system with features that provide control of inmate telecommunications activities. The system provides call blocking and monitoring, account control including personal identification number (PIN) setup and control, report generation including automated trouble reports, call activity reports and other administrative reports as well as numerous other features.
LazerVoice® is an optional feature of LazerPhone™ and provides a recording function for the LazerPhone™ system. LazerVoice® is a modular system that provides the ability to record at its installation site selected telephone conversations, permit monitoring by appropriate authorities of selected conversations, and store for later retrieval recorded conversations as well as other functions and operations involving the recording of telephone conversations. Additional information regarding these products may be found at the World Wide Web site, www.gtl.us, of the corporate owner of the present application interests.
While it is considered well known that the recording of inmate telephone conversations is advantageous to governmental agencies and appropriate authorities in that information regarding the security of facilities and general continuing or past criminal activity may be found in such recordings, retaining the recordings of the inmate calls presents a substantial challenge as the data becomes large very quickly. Maintaining these large stores of recorded conversations at the facilities or creating data warehouses in remote locations with limited environmental controls is problematic. Due to the shear size of the recordings, attempting to move them from the sites requires very high bandwidth, which is prohibitively expensive. Additionally, if the recordings are stored away from the site, the ability to conduct investigations is hampered due to the time necessary to copy the recording back to the local computer for playback. Finally, if the recordings are simply stored at a single facility, such may hamper investigations that may need to be conducted from various locations.
While various aspects and alternative features are known in the field of telecommunications and telephone conversation recording, no one design has emerged that generally integrates all of the ideal features and performance characteristics as discussed herein.